Sitting next to Captain Ryan Evans on the bridge of the USS Ronin-A, Commander Kira Markos was busying himself with making sense of the sensor logs that were being displayed on the panel located in the armrest of his chair. Every once in awhile he would look up around him to see if anything was amiss among the bridge crew. One of the times that he looked around him he caught Commander Karissa Bentara's eyes and managed a small smile. Karissa, who was sitting opposite of Kira across from Evans, returned the gesture, and then returned to her work as Kira continued his survey of the bridge.
As he shut down the display beside him, he sighed a barely perceptible sigh. The sensor logs that Kira was reading displayed a virtual cornucopia of nothing at the moment. Noting Kina's sigh, Evans looked over at Kira and said in a very low tone, "What is it Commander?"
"The sensor logs aren't displaying much at the moment sir. Even if they were giving me any useful information I wouldn't be giving much thought to interpreting them as I'm a little preoccupied at the moment." Said Kira as he turned in his chair to face the Captain a little better.
"I know what you mean, Commander, I'm not much for concentration on the mundane at the moment either." Said Evans as he handed a PADD over to Kira. "Take a look at this."
"What is it?" asked Kira as he began to scan the PADD's content.
"Your final orders during the coming battle. We'll need you to strengthen the shields the most, so you will be in Main Engineering during most of the action." Replied Evans as he pulled up some more information on the viewscreen located in the armrest of his chair.
After finishing the brief order sheet, Kira handed the PADD back to Evans. "This shouldn't be a problem to do. In fact, if I only have to worry about the shields, we should be able to hold out for a very long time under fire from the Kelvans."
"Good to hear that." Replied Evans.
Just as Evans had finished speaking Ensign Andres spoke up in a quick, nervous tone "Captain, I'm picking up something unusual on long range sensors directly in front of us."
"Put it on the viewscreen, Ensign." Said Evans as he turned his attention to the front of the bridge.
The image that loomed before him was all too familiar, and yet still as frightening as he remembered. Before him was the Kelvan battle planet, a large mottled brown planet with a series of eight of moons orbiting it.
"Shields to maximum." Barked Evans in a loud tone as he activated the ship-wide communications system. "All hands. Red alert! This is no drill! Red alert! Red alert!"
A few seconds later Admiral Pike and his assistant Yeoman Piper arrived on the bridge. Standing to one side of Evans, Kira and Karissa, he paused a moment to look at the image before him.
Lieutenant Andres at Tactical was counting down the distance, "They've dropped out of transwarp. 12 million, 11 million, 10 million," but suddenly he stopped and squinted at his readings. After a second, he seemed to decide that his readings were true, and said, "Captain, there's a *second* Battle Planet ahead."
The announcement sent a chill through the bridge.
Captain Evans recovered first and asked, "Heading?"
Andres checked his console and reported, "Both are headed dead into the heart of the Federation."
"I'd better get down to engineering sir" suggested Kira. "I will be better in touch with the ships systems from down there."
"Good luck Commander," said the Captain as Kira stood and left. "Chief, time till we reach the Kelvans."
As Kira reached the turbolift doors he heard the Chief's response: "40 seconds sir."
Counting the agonizing seconds as the turbolift moved through the ship towards Engineering, Kira tried to compose himself in order to concentrate on his task at hand. It was going to take most of his concentration to boost the shield grid's power in order to withstand the Kelvan onslaught. As the doors finally opened Kira ran along the short hallway to Engineering as he weaved in and out of bustling crewmembers preparing for the battle.
As he entered Main Engineering he looked for an empty spot at one of the consoles and seated himself down. Immediately he began to reconfigure the console display to show him any and all information related to the ship's shield grid. He also managed to re-route a couple of power grids in preparation for his energy transfer to the shields. Finally he tapped into the communications system of the ship and set up a secure link between his console and the bridge so he could hear the Admirals and Captains orders in real time. Just as he opened the channel, he was greeted by Evan's voice in the speaker system beside him.
[Attention all hands, we are about
to engage the Kelvans. I can only expect of you what you are able to do, so
do your best, remain calm and we will get through this.] There was a seconds
pause and then Kira heard Captain Evan's voice again this time over his own
secure channel. [Tyran, shields up,
weapons to full. Let's do this.]
[15 seconds sir. Kelvan fighters approaching fast!] said Chief Talsmin's voice.
[How many?] Replied Evans.
[Two thousand sir."] Stated Talsmin.
[Weapons range in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...]
The Ronin rocked violently as the first volley of Kelvan weapons hit them.
[Shields down to 50%!] shouted Tyran alarmed.
[Kira! Get those shields up!] said Evans over the communications channel.
Kira pressed a button on the console and replied, "I'm doing my best Captain." In response to the Captain's order, Kira began to funnel energy through the ship's shield grid through the power grids that he had modified just moments ago.
[Shields are rising] informed Tyran as the ship continued to rock. [100%, 150%, 200%.]
[Mr. Tyran, fire at will] said Evans in a short, curt tone.
At this point Kira was concentrating
as much as possible on the display readouts before him, trying to keep his power
output to the shields as close to optimum as possible. He didn't hear much of
the conversation that was going on around him as he pushed his concentration
to its limits. According
to the readouts in front of him all was going well, and he wasn't feeling close
to being drained of energy.
As the minutes passed, in the background Kira managed to pick up Tyran's voice over the communication system. [Captain, we have taken down two hundred fighters, the Bounty has taken out 192, but we are almost out of torpedoes.]
Just as Tyran's comment was finished a huge creaking went through the ship and conduits and consoles blew out everywhere.
*What on earth?* thought Kira as he looked at the readings in front of him. Suddenly all of his energies were being thrown throughout the ship's shield grid in a haphazard way. It was then that he felt something out of the ordinary, something that he hadn't felt in a long time. Unconsciousness. *But I'm not even tired.* trailed a final thought from Kira as he felt himself slump to the floor of Main Engineering.
Somewhere beside him, Kira heard a crewman move toward him and felt him check his pulse. "Engineering to bridge," said the voice of the crewman, "Commander Markos has collapsed sir."
Suddenly, Kira found himself floating outside of his body. It was an eerie feeling to see the unknown crewman hunched over his body trying to position him in a more comfortable looking position. As he looked around him, he realized that he was not alone in his non-corporeal world. Someone was beside him looking at his form in the same, odd manner that he was doing just a moment ago.
"Q!" shouted Kira as he realized whom it was that stood beside him.
"In the flesh. Well, so to speak anyway." Replied Q in a nonchalant manner.
"What have you done to me?" asked Kira as he tried to grasp what was happening around him. As soon as he noticed Q beside him, time seemed to have slowed down around him. People were slowly moving to a halt and a split second later, they weren't moving at all. Everything was frozen in time.
"I had to take you out of the way, Commander, for reasons that I cannot fully explain to you." Said Q as he walked over to Kira's former station and looked at his handiwork, frozen in time. "Ingenious work, Commander, considering what you had to work with."
Not expecting a compliment from Q, Kira was taken aback. He decided to ignore the compliment and instead focused on Q's first statement. "What do you mean that you had to take me out of the way?"
Q, who had moved over to another crewmember who was trying to put out a small fire in engineering, looked back at Kira and said, "I told you, I cannot fully explain to you why I had to do this."
"That's not a very good answer, Q, and you know it." Replied Kira in a very angry tone.
"Now, there's no need to get angry, Commander. All I can tell you is that the Continuum has a vested interest in keeping you safe and free from harm."
That was not the answer that Kira was expecting, and his only response to Q's answer was a meager "What?"
"If I hadn't caused you to faint, you would have been killed by the energy surge that was traveling through the panel directly behind you. You can thank me for that later."
Again, Kira could only manage a puzzled, "What?"
"You don't believe me? Well, watch." Said Q as he snapped his fingers. Time began to move again and just as it was back up to full speed, Kira noticed that the panel, which was directly behind where he was formerly standing, blew up as one of the main plasma conduits exploded within. Fortunately, the unknown crewman had managed to put his body just out of the way of the explosion, and away from harm.
Q snapped his fingers once again and time ground to a halt as it did before. "There, you see, I protected you from that plasma surge thingy. You were concentrating so hard on your display readings that you didn't notice the energy building up behind you."
As Kira surveyed the frozen display in front of him, he paused for a moment and then continued with his line of questioning. "That still doesn't explain why you saved me from that explosion."
Q gave the Commander a slight smile before answering that managed to affect a feeling of nervousness about his coming answer. "You may not believe me when I say this, but you are very important to the Continuum. Your premature death would have caused a considerable affect in the Continuum. That is all I can tell you at this time," said Q in an overly cryptic tone, "the rest you will have to find out for yourself."
As soon as the words had left Q's lips, Kira found himself being drawn back into his body. As soon as he opened his eyes, he found that time was now continuing in a normal manner. Slowly standing back up, he heard Admiral Pikes voice over the communications system.
["Computer! Deploy armor!]
[Admiral?] asked Evans, as he voiced the question that all the crew, including Kira, wanted to ask.
[A little piece of technology we have acquired from the future. I'll explain later.] said Pike. Kira, and the rest of the crew of the Ronin heard numerous metallic sounds emanating from the hull of the ship, and after they stopped the sounds of battle seemed to be muffled, like nothing was getting through to the ship. [Right now, lets make our way to those planets and save the galaxy.]
[McMillan, get us past these fighters; take us to the planets.]
[Aye sir.] replied Tricia through the small speaker beside Kira.
*How am I going to explain this?* thought Kira as he picked his way back to his former station in preparation for the next phase of the battle, and reached for the communications channel in order to inform the Captain and Admiral that he was back from his little foray with Q.